Coffee'll Kill Ya
by Bulmasan
Summary: A trip to the bank is never routine in a city where supervillains abound...


"Okay," Lieutenant Bryce said. "Let's go over this again."

Sighing, Angela pushed her thumbs against the bridge of her nose, trying to ease the tension headache lurking under her forehead. It didn't help. "I'm not sure what you're looking for." She spoke not to the lieutenant, or even to D.A. Tower, who was sitting across the table from her, but to the silent red-clad figure in the corner. "I assure you, my memory is clear. There's nothing I'm leaving out."

The figure made no response. Tower said, pleasantly enough, "Just indulge us, all right? We really want to get this guy. Maybe hearing it again will help us put it all together."

_Maybe we can find out why you're alive. _That was what he meant. That was why the standard post-crime debriefing had turned into a grilling that was becoming harsher with each re-telling. Reminding herself that she, too, wanted "this guy" put away, Angela said, "Where do you want me to start?"

"From the beginning," said the lieutenant. Stifling a groan, Angela fortified herself with a sip of cold coffee and started again.

* * *

It had begun, really, when her executive assistant called in sick. Angela did not doubt Rick was ill; he'd been sniffling for days. This was errand day, however, when he did all those mundane things like go to the bank and call her dine-in service to arrange her dinners for the next week. Angela briefly considered just letting everything slide. She could go to the ATM over the weekend like a normal person; heck, she could put frozen dinners in the microwave like a normal person. Letting go of her sharply defined life would mean relinquishing control, though. Control had become second nature to her, after a trauma in college forced her to rigorously schedule her time so that thinking was not an option. The need to obscure her thought with rigid control had long since faded; the rigid control itself had not. Deciding that doing her own banking would be enough of a challenge for one day, Angela left her beeper number with the secretary from the temp agency.

Of such trivial decisions are adventures made.

Simply standing in line at the bank was adventure enough for Angela. It gave her a chance to people watch, something her high-pressure brokerage job was not really all that good for. Sure, she had the corner office with the big view windows...20 stories up, where she couldn't see anything except the occasional peregrine falcon dive bombing past to snatch up a pigeon. She smiled at the window clerk, who handed over more cash than he likely made in a month without batting an eye. _Minimum wage; how do they do it? _Angela wondered. She felt like passing over her card and saying that pro bono work could be arranged, but suppressed the impulse. Apart from being patronizing, she wasn't a lawyer, but a stock broker, and stock brokers did nothing pro bono.

Even then the adventure could have been avoided, had she not bumped into Steve Harris on the way out. Hardly one of her biggest clients, Steve was still a vice-president of the bank's parent company and might some day merit more than a half hour of her time, so she did not say no when he invited her up to his office on one of the executive level floors for coffee and a quick chat about the current state of his portfolio.

It was at that point that fate locked on to her like a Scud missile, and the adventure was inevitable.

They did not get as far as coffee. Simply stepping into the hallway of the executive offices was enough for Angela to be catapulted into what military types often called a "situation." She stopped two feet out of the elevator, feeling a tingle of alarm at the back of her neck, but unable to assign it to anything in particular apart from the ill-defined intuition that recognized a plunge in the Dow Jones before it actually happened. Steve turned to see what was holding her back.

She did not actually see the blow that killed Steve. She followed his body as it crumpled to the floor, watched unmoving as a white-gloved hand reached down and plucked what appeared to be the long end of a metal frame from a file folder out of Steve's back. The hand tossed the metal bit end over end, once, and caught it again. Angela wondered at the lack of blood on the white background.

"Hey, babe," said a voice, a little on the raspy side but not unpleasant. "Mind stepping aside? I've got to disable the elevator."

Angela pressed herself against the wall of the hallway, her eyes locked onto the white gloved hand. A flick of the fingers, and the long piece of metal was lodged precisely in the cleft where the edge of the elevator controls met the wall. A twist of the wrist, and the control panel popped off with a shower of sparks. "That'll clue 'em in," said the voice. The gloved hand swooped toward her; she closed her eyes, but instead of darkness and death fingers curled around her upper arm. "C'mon, let's boog. This place will be crawling with blue in no time."

"What we have here," said the voice as Angela was pulled passively along, catching glimpses through open doorways of rifled file cabinets, and the occasional body part, "is a hostage situation. That's what they're going to think at first. They'll try to open negotiations. 'course, what they don't know," Angela was tugged into a corner conference room, with a huge oak table that looked like it seated twenty or so, "is that everyone is _dead_ already."

It seated twenty or so _bodies,_ noted Angela. She was well into the calm that came with true terror; the first rush of adrenaline that shut off fear and cleared the mind of all but the most essential of thoughts. She had only felt it once before in her life, and then, too, she had known she was going to die.

A twist of her arm brought her back against her captor. The raspy voice had a twinge of annoyance to it. "I was only going to whack the finance officer. He was supposed to be available for money laundering; turned out he was an undercover plant, so he had to go. Can you believe it? The main conference room on the top floor got fumigated last night, so they decided at the last minute to hold their meeting here. Had to waste the lot of 'em. I _hate_ bad intelligence. This is gonna cost extra..."

"Wha..." Angela started. She had been going to say, _What do you want?_, but fingers crossed her jaw, forcefully holding her mouth shut. "Hush up," said the voice, not harshly but not with any particular gentleness. She pressed her lips together, hoping he would let go. He didn't.

_My will,_ thought Angela, _is in the bank deposit box. That'll be one of the first things they open, so that's okay. I hope there's enough cat food out to last Patches a couple of days; it might take that long for Mom to remember him. I left my appointment book at the office, since I was going right back; they'll be able to figure out my schedule from that and inform the clients. I hope that rat Andy doesn't get my office -- now _that's _something I should have included in my will..._

They stood in silence for several minutes. What her captor was waiting for, Angela didn't know; she rather wished he would just get it over with. The fingers stroked along her jaw once, then again. Sounding absent minded, the voice said, "You smell nice."

Suddenly, Angela didn't feel so passive. Death was one thing; any extracurricular activities her attacker might have in mind before killing her was not acceptable to her at all. She bit down, hard, against the hand over her mouth, almost cracking teeth against what had to be Kevlar. At the same time she went limp, a dead weight, falling to her knees as his grip slipped. If the gloves were Kevlar the rest of what-ever he was wearing probably was as well, so the standard pressure points she'd learned in self-defense class wouldn't help much. Grabbing his ankle, she shoved it outward, scrambling on all fours toward the door after he stepped away from her hand. A blur of ... something ... whizzed over her head. Seizing the door handle, she tried to pull it open. It didn't budge. Looking up, she saw a pronged instrument wedged into the wood, intersecting the door and the doorframe.

_This is it. _Flattening her palms against the door, Angela worked her way to her feet, took a deep breath, and turned to face her assailant.

She had to blink hard, because she was sure at first her contacts had slipped and she was seeing things. But the figure was still there, standing with arms crossed against his chest and a quizzical twist to his mouth. He was dressed in form-fitting navy blue, with white boots to match the flared white gloves. The cowl covering his head and most of his face obscured his features. _Great, _she thought. _I live my whole life in New York City without ever meeting any super-powered types, and now I'm going to get taken out by a super-villain. By _-- she looked for and found an identifying symbol, the target emblazoned on the forehead of his cowl -- _by Bullseye. It's Bullseye that's going to kill me._

"That," said Bullseye, with no discernible annoyance in his voice, "had to hurt you more than it hurt me."

Angela decided that was the probable truth. Her teeth and jaws ached, and her hand throbbed. Good thing she'd thought better of hitting him in the crotch on the way down, or she'd probably be nursing a broken elbow now as well. She looked into eyes so pale they were almost colorless, and saw no emotion there at all.

When the phone rang, she almost jumped out of her skin. Bullseye didn't move. "That's the 'open negotiations' part," he said, his voice detached. "Problem is, of course, I've heard them moving the SWAT team into position for the past several minutes. They saw enough of my handiwork out there to know it was me, and they're moving up their schedule. They'll start lobbing gas bombs through the ventilation system pretty soon. All this waiting around ... it's really _boring,_ huh?" He tapped a gun holster at his belt, lost in thought for a minute, then pulled out the gun. Angela crowded back against the door; he fired up at the ceiling. Grabbing a body out of one of the high-backed executive chairs, he hefted it effortlessly over one shoulder and marched toward her. "You're in the way again, babe." Angela carefully sidestepped. Pulling the pronged blade out of the wood, Bullseye yanked open the door, shoved the body out with a motion not unlike that of a shot-putter, and slammed the door closed. Turning his back on her, he went to the far end of the table, pushed a dead hand aside, and lifted the receiver of the still-ringing telephone. "A body every five minutes if you don't back your guys off," he barked into the phone and slammed the receiver back. "That'll do it," he said to himself. He glanced over at her. "Come here."

"No," said Angela.

"Babe, you know the line about 'spunk,' right?" The emotionless expression in his eyes morphed into one of puzzlement. "What line about spunk?" he muttered, apparently to himself.

Spunk had nothing to do with it. Angela simply did not feel especially interested in making things easy for her killer. She stayed where she was.

Sighing, Bullseye twined the phone wire about one hand and pulled. Apparently a relic from the pre-cellular days, the wire had been hidden along the table leg and under the carpet; it slithered and snapped sharply as it broke away from some unseen terminal. Bullseye coiled the cord in his hand, not looking at her. He went from stillness to motion so quickly she couldn't follow his actions; then she felt the sting of the wire as it whipped around her arm. "I thought it was long enough," he said in satisfaction. He pulled hard; she took two involuntary steps forward and crashed against a chair. A flick of his wrist, and the wire was again coiled in his hand. "I can drag you across the table, if you want. But that might get messy."

He meant bloody. The table top was awash in the stuff. Careful not too look at what was sitting in the chair she'd smashed into (or, indeed, at what was sitting in any of the chairs), Angela reluctantly, and not too steadily, edged around the table's corner and approached Bullseye at the far end of the room.

"Good timing," he said when she was an arms length away, pulling the gun out again. Angela stopped, hoping she wouldn't be found in too ungainly a position. She heard a gentle hissing from the end of the room she'd just vacated. "Gas," explained Bullseye. "I made 'em move up the schedule again. Makes for good cover." Turning, he fired several rounds at the plate window; the safety glass fractured into fine lines. Reaching back, Bullseye twisted his fingers into her waistband, and flung her through the window.

She was in free fall before she had any idea what had happened. _Sonova--! _ She tumbled out of control, catching disorienting glimpses of street and sky. _This is gonna smart..._

Something that was not yet pavement smacked against her. "Flatten out!" Bullseye yelled at her. "Oh, never mind..." He hooked an elbow through hers, wrapping his fingers around her wrist; from his free hand the phone cord snapped out, catching a flagpole three stories above impact. The free fall turned into the arc of a semi-circle, with Angela dangling helplessly in Bullseye's wake. He released the cord at the height of the arc and started to tuck; she didn't know how to get out of his way and flailed, fouling him. He flipped over, hooking her around the waist and smashing her against him; Angela again saw sky, then billowing cloth surrounded them, tossed them back up, and surrounded them again.

"Awnings," said Bullseye. "Gotta love 'em." Easily finding his footing admist the bucking cloth, he slung her over one shoulder and again threw himself out into space. Hitting the roof of a car in a deep knee bend, he launched off, flipped (_more bloody sky,_ thought Angela) and hit his mark between two buildings, sprinting down the alley. The gymnastics weren't over; reaching up with his unencumbered arm, he snagged the bottom of a fire escape ladder and swung up, racing up the fire escape, running across the roof of the building, and leaping across the alley to the next building, then the next. When he stopped and pushed Angela off his shoulder, they were a good six blocks away from where she had gone to do her banking.

"Well, that wasn't too bad, for a botched assignment," he told her. He pulled off his cowl, absently running his hand through close-cropped sandy hair. "They're still waving their way through the gas, trying to figure out where we went. At worst; " he tugged his gloves off, then pulled off the blue and white Kevlar top; "they're looking for the smear they figure one or both of us made on the pavement. It'll be ten minutes before they cordon off the area."

Angela decided that one more article of clothing coming off would be sufficient grounds for her to dive off the top of this building, too. But Bullseye pulled out two tightly wound bits of cloth from his pouched belt, which when shaken out proved to be a dark t-shirt and a light-weight pale jacket. He quickly and efficiently rolled up his gloves and discarded top and tucked them into his belt, then pulled on his new outfit. Angela found herself looking at a slim man of medium height with even features; someone that had she passed him in the street she never would have looked at twice, let alone thought to herself, that's a famous psychotic assassin for hire. Then she realized: _he's let me see his face. _Now _he's going to kill me..._

Bullseye said, "Want some coffee?"

"Coffee?" repeated Angela blankly. Did he have a coffee pot in one of those pouches? she thought idiotically. Was he going to scald her to death?

"There's a place that serves some great coffee near here. Well, not all that near here, really; it's in Hell's Kitchen. Lady named Rose runs it."

Saying 'yes' to a cup of coffee was what got her into this. "No," said Angela, her voice unnaturally even. "I don't feel like coffee right now. Thank you." 

"Some other time," said Bullseye, politely. "Here." He held out his hand. She looked down; he was offering her a ten dollar bill.

"This is for...?"

"Cab fare back and calling the cops. You dropped your purse at the elevator."

Angela took the bill between two fingers. "Thanks."

"No problem." Turning his back to her, Bullseye walked to the edge of the building and stepped off. She listened for a minute; no sounds of a body hitting anything. Opting for the fire escape, she climbed down to ground level, constantly looking over her shoulder, expecting him to step out of the shadows and say: "By the way, I forgot to kill you before I left. I'll just take care of that now..."

But she didn't see him anywhere. And reaction didn't set in until she made her way back toward the bank building and hit the first set of barricades. Leaning over to get the attention of the closest cop, she felt her knees give out and went down hard; then she started sobbing, and didn't stop until they took her to the nearest precinct.

* * *

"That's all I know," said Angela, ending her tale the same way she had several times already. "I guess he went on to Hell's Kitchen, or he went on to ... where-ever home is. I don't know why he let me see him..." 

"He's been in police custody," said the lieutenant. "We know what he looks like."

"...and I don't know why he let me go. I don't know why," she said, more to herself, "he let me live."

At that, the figure in red stirred. "He usually lets one person live," he said. He had a quiet timbre to his voice, as if he rarely spoke in strident tones. "He likes to have a witness. It feeds his ego."

Angela felt sick. "You mean; if I'd gotten off the elevator first ..."

"We'd probably be talking to Mr. Harris, not you," the man in red said, not unsympathetically. He stood up. Angela looked at the cowl with its covered eye holes, the entwined "D's" on the chest. "I've covered Hell's Kitchen. I even had coffee at Rose's -- it _is_ about the best to be found in New York, although I don't often get to finish my cup. He's not to be found."

After tapping his fingers against the table for a minute, D.A. Tower nodded at the lieutenant and said to Angela, "You're free to go. When we get this guy, we may need you to testify." 

Angela nodded, her mind empty of anything, staring into her coffee cup. Its congealing powdered cream product was making patterns on the cold surface of the liquid. _I'm going to swear off coffee_, she thought. "Do you think I could catch a ride...?" 

"We'll take you home." 

"Thanks." Feeling as if she were in a dream, Angela walked out of the door the lieutenant was holding open for her.

* * *

"She was telling the truth, Tower," DareDevil said to the D.A. after she left. "She wasn't in on silencing officer Webster. She just happened to be there." 

Tower raised a brow at the certainty in DD's voice, but said only: "I think I'll ask for a tail on her, stake out her apartment. Won't hurt anything. I have a hard time believing Bullseye would have offered Harris coffee and cab fare." 

"Waste of time. You're wrong if you think Bullseye is attracted to her, Tower. You can't ascribe motives to his actions. He works on whims." 

"It wasn't a whim when he took out Webster." 

"No," said DareDevil softly. "Or when he took out everyone else on the floor. There's no challenge in mass murder, and Bullseye likes to make things challenging. I get the feeling, Tower, that there's something in this little scenario that is escaping us." 

* * *

"I loathe messes," said Wilson Fisk. 

Bullseye was sitting across from him, balancing a pencil by its lead tip on one finger. Fisk knew that Bullseye might well send the pencil rocketing for his eye socket at any second, just to watch the big man snatch it out of the air. Bullseye liked doing things like that. "It got the job done." 

"I do not appreciate wholesale slaughter. There were half-a-dozen support personal that did not need to share the board's fate." 

Bullseye shrugged. "I was in a mood. Dock me." 

Fisk sighed. "No. In a war, there is always collateral damage. I wish to remind you, however, that it can usually be contained." 

"Okay," said Bullseye agreeably. "Next time a group of businessmen tries to organize a cartel in your territory, I'll keep it in mind." 

"Thanks to the combination of your -- efficiency -- in wiping out my challengers, and the story you told the woman, it will be some time before 'next time.' The police think their little undercover operation was the focus of your attentions; it pleases me to let them think so. Those who knew of the challenge will have also received the message, and moved their operations accordingly. You performed your task ... acceptably, Bullseye." 

"Of course," said Bullseye. He flicked the pencil end over end, then caught it again on the tip of his finger. "I _am_ the best, Kingpin. You should have me around full time." 

"Then I would have to put up with you full-time," Fisk said coldly. An unamused smiled curled his thin lips, folding creases into his round face. "This I choose _not_ to do." 

"Your penny," said Bullseye. "Speaking of which..." 

"The funds have been deposited into the usual Swiss account." 

Bullseye inclined his head. "Then I'll be on my way." The pencil sailed from his fingers, landing point down in a container filled with them. "When you have something impossible to do, you know how to get me." 

"Yes." Fisk waited until the other man was almost after the door before continuing. "One question." 

Bullseye stopped, but did not turn around. 

"How is it you pick your survivors?" 

Bullseye seemed at a loss. "My...?" 

"The Garcia woman mentioned in the press today." 

"Garcia...?" 

Impatiently, rather wishing he hadn't brought it up, Fisk said, "Angela Garcia. I've had your survivors analyzed; frankly, there is no pattern to your choices. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, but I found myself wondering if there was some common factor that had escaped us." 

"_Was_ there a woman...?" Bullseye leaned against the doorjamb, eyes half closed. Clearly the entire incident had already been pushed out of his mind, and he was having some trouble bringing it back. 

"Then there was nothing in particular that made you spare her?" 

"Hmmm?" Straightening up, Bullseye shook himself out of what-ever mad trance had momentarily taken him. He smiled back at the desk, a white slash with no humor or sanity about it. "She smelled nice. That was it. See ya around, fat boy." 

Fisk allowed himself a second or two of annoyance. Then, reminding himself that Bullseye was nothing if not expendable, he banished the impertinence of the man from his mind and returned to the business of keeping his empire intact.

* * *

_This fan fic was written by Jeanne Burch, and uses characters without permission that are copyrighted by Marvel Comics. _


End file.
